There are musical sound editing apparatuses, for example, of conventional electronic keyboard instruments, having a general performance function as well as a pattern sequencer function. According to the latter function, accompaniment data, for example, forming a rhythm can be edited. In the general performance mode, a melody channel generates a melody part in accordance with keyboard performance and a plurality of accompaniment channels also generates musical sounds of accompaniment parts such as a rhythm, a base and a chord. In a pattern create mode which creates accompaniment data, one accompaniment part is specified and its accompaniment data is created.
When, for example, the mode is changed from the general performance mode to the pattern create mode in the creation of a pattern of accompaniment data in a guitar tone, the guitar tone is set. Then, the keyboard is performed to create an accompaniment pattern of a guitar tone, which is then stored in a memory. The mode is then changed to the general performance mode and a performance is given on the keyboard to generate a melody part, for example, of a piano tone and the created accompaniment part of a guitar tone is audibly generated by automatic performance.
A desired accompaniment pattern can rarely be created in a single operation. Generally, the pattern creation is repeated several times to obtain a finished desired accompaniment pattern. However, in the conventional musical sound editing apparatus, tone setting in the general performance mode is unrelated to that in the pattern create mode as a pattern sequencer. Thus, creation of a pattern of accompaniment data is very complicated.
For example, when a pattern of accompaniment data of a guitar tone is created in the pattern create mode, (1) a tone select switch is turned on to set a guitar tone to create the pattern, (2) the mode is then changed from the pattern create mode to the general performance mode to perform in the created pattern, and (3) when the mode is again changed from the general performance mode to the pattern create mode, the tone select switch is again required to be turned on to set the guitar tone. In this case, even if the tone of the keyboard in the general performance mode is the guitar one, the guitar tone is required to be newly set when the mode is changed from the general performance mode to the pattern create mode. That is, each time the mode is changed from the general performance mode to the pattern create mode in the creation of the accompaniment pattern, the tone select switch is required to be turned on to set the tone for pattern creation, which is very troublesome.